Ampthill v Saracens Pre-Season Friendly Preview

Man of the hour

If our first pre-season game against Cornish Pirates was about forging new friendships, this weekend is all about renewing old ones. The link between the two clubs has been extremely beneficial to both parties over the last few years. Sarries get game time for their up and coming prospects and “The Mob” get to fill out their squad with some Premiership quality.

In recent years some big names have gained valuable minutes via the dual-registration programme - Ben Earl, Theo Dan, Tobias Elliott and Noah Caluori to name just a few. The summer also saw players heading in opposite directions on a full time basis, with Saracens signing centre Sione Va’enuku and young back row Barney Merrett making his loan to Ampthill permanent.

An interesting sub-plot of this game will be whether or not we see Sarries players turning out for both sides. Young fly half Luke Davidson started for Ampthill in their previous pre-season game and a full season pulling the strings in the Championship could do wonders for him. However, whether he and/or other youngsters run out in the Ampthill maroon and gold on Saturday remains to be seen.

It seems highly likely that Saracens will opt for a similar strategy as the Pirates game, with an inflated matchday squad and wholesale changes at half time. I also expect we will be seeing at least a few of the summer internationals for the first time, as a chance to get minutes into their legs before the Tigers game.

Street went off injured last week (but it looked more precautionary than anything else), Jamie George is nursing a slight injury, Cinti only finished up with Argentina last weekend, Onyeama-Christie was busy getting married last week but is hopefully fit and ready to go now and Gonzalez was roaming around the ground last week so can’t be far away from a matchday squad. Other than that we seem fully stocked

No sign of the game being streamed anywhere but tickets are still available at £10 a pop for those who can make it.